


Come Home

by guineapiggie



Series: Happy Endings (are just stories that haven't finished yet) [6]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Post-Divorce, the sappy happy ending we promised I guess, with a side of angst because it's me y'know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2018-10-13 18:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10519119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: "Bodhi sighs and follows the pair on the dancefloor with his eyes, feeling almost painfully reminded of that night at the beach in Mexico.He remembers thinking they had the beauty of autumn flowers about them, that there was something strangely perishable, something fragile about their happiness even then.They make a stunning pair even now they’re dancing on the shards of all that."





	1. Alternative to randomdreamer01's "Grace"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randomdreamer01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomdreamer01/gifts).



> whose mind apparently works _exactly_ like mine?! It has been an honour and a priviledge, ma'am!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so... I wasn't sure how far **randomdreamer01** would take her ending and where I would get to pick off and... well, we now kind of have the same scene twice. Which is weird and I wasn't going to post it, but I think it's pretty fascinating how similar they are and also there are a few passages I'm pretty proud of so I decided to just share it with you anyway. You can see this as a kind of alternative version of that moment, everything from here on out will match both versions.  
>  Honestly, my favourite part of all this is that we touched on literally all the same subjects, except in mine there's a lot of staring and angsting and weird silences instead of talking... what does this say about me?!  
> (This is so complicated I'm sorry!!!)

 

 

_~~How can you just walk away from me?  
When all I can do is watch you leave~~ _

_~~You're the only one who really knew me at all~~ _

_Take a look at me now 'cause there's just an empty space_  
_But to wait for you is all I can do and that's what I've got to face_  
_Take a good look at me now 'cause I'll still be standing here_  
_And you coming back to me is against all odds_  
_It's the chance I've gotta take_

* * *

 

 

For the longest time, he stands around on the sidelines, constantly trying to avoid both the waiters with the champagne (God, he _hates_ champagne, and yet it’s never been this tempting -) and _her._ It’s pathetic. Completely and utterly pathetic.

But then again, it’s not _entirely_ fear keeping him away from her. It’s just that being able to stand here in a warm room, listening with half a mind to Chirrup harping on and on about China to him and Kay and watching her chat to Bodhi… it’s almost enough.

Cassian could spend the rest of his days just standing here, looking at Jyn in her little red dress and the shoes he can tell she hates wearing, smiling and gesturing and sparkling in the light like the champagne flute in her hand… he could just do that for the rest of his life, and he’d be fine with it.

He can’t remember having reached this level of content in a very long time, but it is a fragile state of being. The moment he makes a step towards her, the moment he opens his mouth to say something (undoubtedly stupid), the warm, stubborn hope that’s been gradually growing inside him this past few months might be taken from him again, and he’s not quite sure if he could bear that.

“I believe you should move from here before you strike roots,” says Chirrut and Cassian flinches a little.

“I’m sorry?”

The blind man smiles up at him in that serene way he has. “I believe you’re in a good enough physical health to make it, what, twenty steps across an even surface, Cassian.”

Cassian feels mildly attacked at this point, and decides to play dumb, partly out of sheer childish stubbornness, partly because he knows how much Chirrut enjoys patronising him and is therefore not very likely to stop either way.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“At least one of us will have to dance at this party or we will make it look like Bodhi has terribly dull friends.”

Cassian grins despite himself and shakes his head at his old friend. “What are you doing, Chirrut?”

“I’m giving you a passable excuse, little brother. I feel like you need one.”

Baze snorts into his glass and Cassian feels the heat rising in his cheeks just a little.

“Here’s a better incentive,” comes Kay’s voice from behind him, managing to sound amused _and_ disgruntled at the same time. “Your dancing is better than your talking, so you should lead with that.”

“I hate all of you sometimes,” Cassian mutters.

“If I get myself a drink, will that force you to get a move on?” his friend asks, brow slightly raised.

“That, or I will finally break your nose,” Cassian replies darkly and looks up from his dusty shoes only to find Jyn looking at him across the room.

 _God,_ what he’d give for a drink right about now.

 

 

 

“Dance with me.”

 _That came out great, good job, you idiot._ Cassian grimaces a little, both at his smooth conversation starter and the fact the self-deprecating voice in his head has now taken on Kay’s sharp English accent.

“What?”

He tries for a smile that probably looks every bit as forced as it feels. “At least a few of us will have to dance, and I’m not dancing with Kay.”

He can’t believe he’s actually _using_ that pathetic excuse.

She smiles. “I’d pay to see that, though.”

“I don’t know how drunk we would have to get him to agree to that,” he mutters and holds out a hand. “Come on. I don’t think we can do much worse than the rest of these people.”

Jyn grins and shakes her head, but to his surprise takes his hand. “Look at you throwing shade at a bunch of college students. Very mature.”

He shrugs and narrowly avoids being stepped on his toes, and the fact she’s still such a terrible dancer makes him smile a little. He can see Bodhi and Kay eying them closely and Chirrut’s wide, victorious smile, and he sighs a little.

“What is it?”

“I just hate to give them the satisfaction,” he mutters, nodding towards their friends.

Jyn smiles and shakes her head. “There are worse things, right?”

Cassian raises a brow at her. “Worse things than admitting Kay and Chirrut are right about something?”

“Touché.”

She chuckles, dropping her head a little which makes him realise with a pang how _close_ they are – some things never change, and the magnetic pull between them seems to be one of those. He didn’t _intend_ to invade her space, but here they are, her head an inch or so away from resting on his shoulder. His skin is burning where he can feel the warmth of her hands through the fabric of his jacket and something – he tells himself it’s her perfume – is making his head spin a little.

He is about to rectify the lack of personal space, though he is loath to do it, when the next song comes up and he realises two things in quick succession:

The music is far too slow for his liking, and secondly…

_“Times have changed and times are strange_  
_Here I come, but I ain't the same_  
_Mama, I'm coming home”_

  
Oh, this is not good. Not good at all.

For a second, he tries to tell himself that it’s just his being a non-native speaker that makes him this alert to lyrics, nobody else will notice… but Jyn’s grip on his shoulder is becoming increasingly painful, and there’s a sudden tension in the small group of bystanders as well.

He’s _not_ the only one who’s heard.

He sighs heavily and pulls her a little closer – because this is the kind of dance the song demands, obviously. Not because all embarrassment fades to nothing in the span of a few seconds because for the first time in over five years, he’s not just _imagining_ the way she fits in his arms, how warm and comforting she is there.

Oh _God_ , he’s missed this. He feels like at this point he’s pictured her so many times that if feels utterly unreal to actually see her, _touch_ her now, and if it wasn’t for the sharp pain in his toes he’d probably be very much convinced he was just dreaming.

He’s expected this to hurt, but it doesn’t, not really. Instead, it feels strangely nostalgic, a pull in his chest just strong enough to be tangible; a feeling of melancholy that he has lived with most of his life, one that he has thus far only ever related to thoughts of Mexico, of his early childhood.

It takes him a moment to find the painfully obvious link: of course it’s the same feeling. Two families, two homes lost.

 

 _“You made me cry, you told me lies_  
_But I can't stand to say goodbye_  
_Mama, I’m coming home”_

 

Jyn leans her head against his shoulder and he feels her fingers dig into the fabric of his jacket. She’s warm and steady and her grip on him is firm enough to keep him from shattering, just about.

  
_“I could be right, I could be wrong_  
_It hurts so bad, it's been so long_  
_Mama, I'm coming home”_

 

Bodhi sighs and follows the pair on the dancefloor with his eyes, feeling almost painfully reminded of that night at the beach in Mexico. He can’t remember the song that had been playing, and he’s pretty sure neither Cassian nor Jyn would have had the mind to notice even if it’d been _Highway to Hell_ , but he remembers the feeling.

He remembers thinking he’d never seen Jyn _glow_ like that, remembers thinking that in all the months he’d known him, he hadn’t known Cassian could smile like that – but at the same time, he remembers thinking they had the beauty of autumn flowers about them, that there was something strangely perishable, something fragile about their happiness even then.

They make a stunning pair even now they’re dancing on the shards of all that, he thinks absent-mindedly.

 

 _“I've seen your face a hundred times_ _  
Every day we've been apart”_

Kay’s mind appears to be going into a very different direction.

“Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me,” he says, throwing the young man behind the mixer a dark glare. “I’m going to murder this DJ.”

Bodhi smiles a little. “I think he’s helping your case, though.”

“It’s not _my_ case, it’s his,” Kay gives back irritably. “Oh, bloody hell. This is _so_ on the nose.”

Bodhi chuckles and empties his champagne glass. “This is supposed to be a graduation party, you know. The poor man is probably not expecting _their_ level of drama tonight.”

Kay huffs in what might be read as agreeance or indifference and announces he’ll get another round.

“Whichever way this one goes down, I don’t think I can take it sober,” he mutters and Bodhi finds himself somewhat agreeing to that.

He’d absolutely trust Cassian to get any of them out of a burning building, he’s just still not sure if he can trust him with the breakable thing that is Jyn’s half-healed heart, and the fact that the man himself doesn’t look like he’s sure of that is not exactly  helping.

Once again, Bodhi wonders how a single person’s face can hold that amount of conflicting emotions, and he’d be furious with anyone who makes Jyn look this terrified, except that she also looks so fiercely _hopeful_ that he can’t help hoping himself, just a little.

Maybe this time.

Please, God, make this work.

 

* * *

 

“What you said on the phone…” she begins slowly, her voice barely audible over the sound of her heels digging into the gravel path of the parking lot.

He throws her a strange look, his eyes ever so slightly blurred by the cigarette smoke.

“Are you really going to ask if I meant it?”

“No,” she mutters, returning her eyes to the tips of her shoes. The one thing about Cassian that she’s never doubted is his commitment to the things he says – even if they’re lies, he takes his own words all too seriously, always has, always will.

“I’m asking how you know there’s a chance. How do we know it’ll work this time?” she asks and hates her voice for sounding so broken and so lost after all this time, but she forces herself to keep talking, because this feels too much like old times already and she cannot go one step further before she has an answer to that.

“I can’t do this again. I can’t piece myself together again. I almost didn’t even make it this time, I don’t have the strength to do it again. Bodhi doesn’t, either. So how do you know?”

He sighs and is silent for a painfully long time, drops the cigarette to the ground and watches the embers go out.

“I thought giving up was an option, last time. I thought I could let you go and get on with my life.” There’s a strange little laugh falling from his lips. “I realised I was wrong about that.”

He pauses, waiting, until she meets his eyes, black in the twilight, and she tries not to linger on how pathetic it is that the way he looks at her still makes her shudder.

“I know you don’t need me, Jyn,” he says very softly and she opens her mouth to argue, but he shakes his head. “No, you don’t. I just barely managed to turn my downward spiral into some kind of… my life’s just going in circles. I do the same meaningless things every day, and I could live another thirty years or die tomorrow and it wouldn’t make a difference –“

“Don’t say that,” she hears herself say, much sharper than she intended. “Don’t you say that.”

Again, there’s a tender little smile tugging at his lips. “I’m just trying to say I haven’t even managed to get back to where I was before I met you in six years, and look at you. You’re in a better place than you were before we met, far better than you were when you were with me.”

She sighs. “Don’t make a big thing out of the fact I’ve stopped going on binges like a teenager on spring break, Cassian,” she mutters, but he cuts her off.

“No, Jyn. You did more than that.”

“Stop complimenting me on the fact you don’t have to worry about my survival on a daily basis anymore!” she says irritably and it’s his turn to sigh.

“Listen, as a person you once liked enough to marry…”

That sentence stings so much she thinks it must show on her face, but he goes on even though there’s a flicker of regret in his eyes that tells her he’s seen.

“… I demand the right to tell you that I’m proud of you, okay?”

She huffs and wraps her arms around herself against the gentle summer breeze, taking a step away from him. “Fine.”

He eyes her for a moment in what could be frustration or something else entirely, then shrugs out of his jacket and holds it out to her, unmoving, until the nostalgia gets the better of her and she takes it.

“I am, you know?” he says very quietly. “I’m really proud of you.”

She wants to tell him to shut up, wants to tell herself she didn’t need to hear this, but the lump in her throat betrays her. She bites her lip and waits for the tightness in her chest to fade.

He leans against the wall and stares up at the starlit sky, which gives her a much needed moment to breathe without the embers in his eyes burning her. She doesn’t quite know how she used to stand the heat.

“I know what it would mean, Jyn,” he says suddenly, eyes still fixed on the stars –

 _There, see these bright ones? Forming a W? That’s Cassiopeia. You’ll at least know that one, alright, it’s an easy one,_ she hears herself say, lightyears away, curled up next to him on the hood of his car, pointing at the night sky over Texas.

She wonders fleetingly if he still searches for the constellations the way he used to, pointing them out to her with a proud smirk that was only half in jest.

“I know how hard it would be, sorting us out. I know what it would take and I’m not here to say it would be easy.” He returns his eyes to her and adds softly: “All I’m saying is I’m willing to do it. We deserve a real shot at this, Jyn. We met at a very strange time in our lives, and we weren’t... Damn it, you were twenty-two when we got married, that’s no kind of age for that, and you’d just lost your father, and I wasn’t in a good place, it… I feel like we just met at the wrong time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she whispers, quite unable to tear her eyes away, and thinks maybe she was always a little scared the way he looks at her would burn her. Maybe that was part of the problem.

“I don’t know if I’m ready _now_ ,” she adds and he smiles a little.

“I think we can go the rest of the way together, maybe.”

She pulls his jacket tighter around her shoulders and ponders that for a moment. She’s not sure if she is ready, but she does feel _different_ from how she was when they first met. Less angry. A little less lost, maybe.

“I’m scared of this, Cass,” she whispers, fingers clawing the fabric of the jacket.

He just looks at her, doesn't make a sound.

“I’m scared we’ve made this into something it never was. People do that, you know,” she says, stumbling over the syllables. “Grief does that. You idolise things, or people. I’m scared we won’t live up to what we imagined it could be.”

He nods. “Yes. I thought about that, too, but…” He sighs and pushes himself off the wall. “I want to try. It’s a risk, it is; I just think it’s one we have to be willing to take. I understand if you can’t.”

 _“Jyn, can you stop?”_ she hears him say instead, years and years ago, and hears her own voice whisper to him sometime in the middle of the night back when everything was simpler and more complicated, all at once; back when she had no idea what this would all lead to… _“Yes. Let’s do it. Let’s make it work.”_

_“I like you quite a bit. You know that, right?”_

_“There are beaches down in Mexico.”_

She can feel the sand at her feet, hear the waves rushing in the distance, and then there’s just their hands linked on his shabby little dining table, his wedding band catching the morning sun… _“If that’s what you need, Jyn, then I can’t stop you.”_

_“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, Jyn.”_

_“The day I don’t come for you, I’ll be dead,”_ she hears him say, and then she can almost physically feel the months and months of silence that followed after, and then the next time she heard his voice –

_“Please call me, Jyn, just call, we’ll find a way, somehow. I’ll do anything, just call me… I love you, you know that, right?”_

_“You didn’t want to stay.”_

She feels dizzy, and the world is blurring a little before her eyes.

_“Come home, Jyn.”_

Her eyes sting and her balance is threatening to abandon her in earnest, and then there’s a hand on her shoulder, catching her just in time.

_Come home._

“Hey. Breathe, okay? It’s okay, Jyn, hey, it’s fine, don’t worry, it can all wait,” he whispers and there’s nothing but worry in his voice, no demands, no reproach, just warmth, and it makes the tears fall even quicker.

_Come home._

She pulls him closer, hides her face in his shirt for a while, lets him put his arms around her after a moment of hesitation, pull her close the way neither one of them dared back on the dancefloor.

_Come home._

She takes her time, breathes in the familiar smells, grateful for how much this feels like he’d never been gone from her life –

And just like that, the decision is made – or rather, there never really was one _._ Because this is it. This is all the home she could ever ask for.

_Yes. I’m ready to come home now._

A small, relieved smile pulls at her lips, but she wastes no time voicing the thought. They’ve lost so many years already. Instead, she pulls herself out of his embrace just far enough to reach up and kiss him.

(They have, after all, always been better at that than talking.)

 

* * *

  
_Come home, come home_  
_‘cause I’ve been waiting for you_  
_for so long, so long_

 _Right now there’s a war between the vanities_  
_but all I see is you and me_  
_and the fight for you is all I’ve ever known_

_So come home_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quotes are, in order:
> 
> "Against All Odds" - Phil Collins  
> "Mama, I'm Coming Home" - Ozzy Osbourne (I'm sorry, I had a fit of nostalgia I cannot explain this)  
> "Come Home" - One Republic feat. Sara Bareilles
> 
> (Also, Cassian quotes Fight Club for some bizarre reason and I don't even care at this point...)


	2. Honey, you should know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, so this is actually just the first bit of what was supposed to be this chapter, because it got way out of hand and is currently some 8k words long? So I decided to split it ^^
> 
> Theme Song for this one:  
>  _Green Eyes_ \- Coldplay
> 
> (an oldie but a goodie, you know?)
> 
> Warning: the angst is _back for good_ in this one. Don't worry, I'll get slightly better. Or worse. Anyways. I promise. This is a happy ending!!!

**[days: 1]**

“Can we just stay in bed forever?” she mutters into the pillow, desperately trying to make it sound like a rhetorical question.

But it isn’t, because damn it, she got swept up in the moment and so did he, but he can’t have meant it. So the real question is, how long can they keep living in their own sad fantasies?

Once they get up reality will catch up with them and he will let her go and get dressed and leave, and her heart will break more than she will admit to herself or anybody else. And their stupid little dance will continue on, and this night has ripped open any kind of new skin that might have grown over the wounds in the last six years.

So what’s next? Another six years of crying and fantasising over something she hardly had long enough to comprehend? Another six years of missing him in all the wrong ways?

Another six years of missing _this,_ missing someone looking at her like she’s something fascinating, like she’s beautiful, like she’s comfort and security and _home_ – looking at her like she’s a person, someone other people can love, instead of something damaged and broken and pitiful?

He shifts a little and she can feel dark warm eyes lingering on her face, can picture the frown around them without looking. His finger runs along her jaw, tilts her chin just a little towards him. “Look at me.”

She finds his dark eyes and is surprised to realise her heart doesn’t break when she meets them, strangely amused and saddened at the same time that she’s still not used to the embers in them glowing down at her, and somehow still comforted by the warmth that spreads in her chest at the sight of him.

(No one else has ever looked at her like that, and she thinks nobody ever will.)

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says like he’s read her mind, in a quiet, firm voice that she remembers all too well – because Cassian hasn’t made a lot of promises to her, but this solemn tone is an edge to his voice she won’t forget until she’s dead in the ground –

( _I do. I do. I do.)_

“I’m not leaving until you tell me to go. Okay?”

She wants to take these words and believe them, God, she does, but –

Instead, she laughs a little. “I’m not sure we work that way, Cassian.”

“I’m not leaving, Jyn. I have never left you and I won’t unless you tell me to,” he replies quietly, and she’s not sure if he intends these words to sting but they do. _I have never left you._ She hears the words he swallowed – _you were the one who left –_ and just like that, she can’t hold his gaze anymore.

(Even though he’s wrong, he did leave her. Never physically, but oh, he _did_ leave her.)

There’s so much broken china between them.

“Cassian –“

“Don’t. I’m not making reproaches,” he cuts her off in a voice that makes her shiver with all the hurt and the warmth in it. “I said I’d be here, and I am.”

“Yeah,” she mutters and presses her lips to his neck, curling her hand into his hair. “Yeah, you are.”

His hand is warm where it presses against the small of her back, and for a moment, she lets her eyes fall shut and tries her best to fully comprehend the fact that he _is_ here _–_ and allows herself, stupidly, to believe in his words. ( _Just for now. For as long as it lasts. Just a little while longer.)_

“You don’t suppose you could let me go for a few minutes so I can get coffee?” he mumbles into her hair after a while, a little laugh in his voice.

“Seriously?”

“Caffeine addiction is a very real issue, Jyn.” His voice is quiet and light, but loses all trace of teasing when he adds: “I promised to buy you coffee.”

She chuckles, but doesn’t move. “Mh... I might be okay with that if you bring me one.”

“Or we could get dressed and continue this conversation somewhere like adults, you know,” he mutters, winding out of her arms. She feels the loss of his warmth far more physically than she should.

“Sitting. At a table.”

“This conversation? Which conversation?”

“The one where I don’t want this to be what it was five years ago?” he says quietly and she winces. Tries and fails not to think of those few messy drunken relapses during the year after the divorce – the ones that forced her to leave town, in the end, because it was too hard to quit him when he was that easy to reach.

“Do you seriously think it could be anything else?” she whispers, sitting up and hugging her knees and watches him gathering up his clothes from the thick hotel carpet.

He freezes mid-movement, then sits down on her side of the mattress with a strange look on his face, the wrinkled white shirt only half-buttoned.

“Why do you think I called you, Jyn?”

She shrugs and stares at her feet. “Because you missed me?”

“Because I could have died, and all I cared about was the realisation that my ring was in the glove compartment when the car went up in smoke.”

She frowns a little, but doesn’t look up at him. “Why was it in your car?”

“Because that’s where I used to keep it,” he says in a sheepish tone. “I tried to leave it at the apartment, but that didn’t work out and obviously I couldn’t keep carrying it with me, so... car.”

She bites her lip and swallows with some difficulty. It's at the same time relieving and heart-breaking to find he's still the same fucking sap he always was.

“Who would’ve thought I’d be the one still having it?” she mutters and shakes her head, and he smiles.

“Kay saved it. He took it the day before when Kes’s car blew. I never thought he knew what it meant, but… looks like he knows me better than I’d like after all.” He shakes his head, his smile turning a little pained. “Come on,” he mutters and kisses her lightly. “Coffee. Then we'll talk.”

She sighs and lets him pull her up. “Yeah. You did promise.”     

 

“I want to move back to New York,” she says, idly stirring in her coffee, tracing patterns into the milk froth. “For good this time. I found a place in Soho, I can move in next month.”

He smiles a little. “Good.”

She nods, slowly, still avoiding his eyes. She’s beating around the bush and she knows it, but – they haven’t talked in years, who can blame her if she’s a little reluctant to burst the bubble?

“Chirrut needs teachers for his school. I’ve taken a few courses in England, so I was thinking I could do that. Teach self-defence classes, I mean. I did that in London. It was nice.”

“That suits you,” he mutters, again with that fleeting smile that disappears within moments.

Cassian’s hands lie flat on the table like a soldier’s sitting in front of a superior officer. Like she’s interrogating him. With a little sigh, Jyn resigns herself to the inevitable. They came here to talk this through, and she really can’t draw it out any longer.

“So... until I tell you to go, then?”

He watches her closely. “Yes. And... look, Jyn this - this doesn’t... this doesn’t have to be complicated,” he adds in a tone that is unlike him, that is hasty and unrefined, like he’s scared they’re not the right words but still anxious to make her hear them... In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d say there was a touch of pleading in his voice. “I’m not asking you to make changes for me. You should have your own place and your own life and I won’t take up a second more of your time than you’re willing to give me.”

She could almost laugh with how wrong he gets her. And she thinks Bodhi was right about a few things. If they are really ever to try again, they will have a lot to learn.

(The thing she’s always admired most about Chirrut and Baze is the _confidence_ they have in their love for each other. She and Cassian never had that. They’re both perpetually waiting for the other to turn around and change their mind – she would trust him with her life, it’s not that; it’s that she doesn’t trust _herself_ to keep him around.)

Looks like they’re still having that same issue – trying to take back everything said and done the past night, worried it was too much too soon, afraid to scare the other off… _Jesus,_ yes, they do need help. Probably a lot of help.

She glances back up at him, smiles a little and asks slowly: “What if I _want_ you to take up my time, though?”

For a moment, he looks confused, then there’s a tentative smile tugging at his lips, too. “Well, then I can do that, too.”

She nods, then forces herself to go on. “I’m serious. I know you’re trying to give me space, but... space was all I had the last time, and you know what space means?” There’s pain in the faint creases of his face now but she forces herself to keep talking. “It means you’re alone and cold in a vacuum, Cassian.”

“You said you can’t do this again,” he replies slowly. “And neither can I. So we should be careful. If we –“

“If we’re insane enough to do this again?” she suggests. A small smile flickers over his lips and he shrugs in agreement.

“- then we should take it slow.”

“Oh, so, last night,” Jyn says with a grin spreading on her face for a moment, “that was your idea of taking it slow, was it?”

He rolls his eyes and sighs a little. “I’m serious, Jyn.”

“Okay, yeah. I agree,” she replies and takes a sip of her coffee, then adds in a quiet sort of voice: “But you need to get the difference between giving someone space and abandoning them in it. Because that was part of the problem, you know, I never wanted _that_ much space. I never wanted to be _in_ space. I want to feel like I’m a part of your life, and that doesn’t work unless you make me a part of it. Unless you talk to me, tell me things. I’m not reading you the way you read me, Cassian, I need you to tell me. I can’t be in that place I was where I felt like I don’t know you at all.”

His eyes are still on hers and don’t let go, and they still make her breath catch just a little after all this time.

“That’s my condition. I can’t stay if you can’t learn to do that.”

“I can learn that,” he replies slowly after a moment.

“Really, can you?”

He stirs in his coffee, then looks up at her and nods. “Yes. For you I can.”

Something swells hot and almost painful in her chest, but she doesn’t even try to put that into words. “We need help with all this, Cassian.”

He grimaces. “I know. I don’t like the idea, but… yes, we do.”

She reaches across the table and takes his hand, and shoves away the memories of their fingers linked on his small run-down kitchen table, of that damn ring he would never take off for one minute catching the morning sun.

It goes away, too, after a moment.

He looks up at her and there’s a sliver of darkness in his eyes that tell her he’s thinking the same, but he throws her a smile and stirs in his coffee and his thumb traces circles across her skin.

The truth of it all is this this: it’s not going to be easy. But here they are, sitting in the sun in comfortable silence, and she knows she’d walk through hell to get here if she had to.

(And maybe they already did.)

 

* * *

 

 

**[days: 67]**

Learning each other and shedding the habits that ruined them the last time is an ugly, tiring, drawn-out struggle - even after the six years of misery before that, these first couple of months take a heavy toll. There are long nights of discussions and fights and painful talks, there are absurdly detailed sets of rules they set up for themselves; in the end, there’s therapy, which is the only sensible thing, but it’s hard on them both.

They fight, and their fights are as ugly as they were. There are nights spent back in separate cold and empty beds with half the city between them, and neither one of them sleeps too much then. There are nights after the weekly sessions that they just fall asleep on the couch the moment they get back.

At the precinct, he catches Dameron’s worried frown more than once and it’s not hard to tell why. He probably looks like shit. Kay doesn’t ask because he knows, but he looks concerned too when he thinks Cassian isn’t looking. He has a hard time blaming either one of them – this is more or less what he looked like the months before the break-up. He has moments of absence and some days he feels like he could sleep for weeks.

He knows the bad stuff probably shows more than the good, but even though half the time he feels like shit, he hasn’t been this happy in six and a half years, and he’d do this for the rest of his life just to get to wake up and know she’ll be there if he opens his eyes.

It’s enough.

It sucks and it’s a lot to take in, especially those goddamn therapy sessions, but it’s worth it.

This past one was particularly bad though, and he can't stop replaying the whole damn conversation in his head on the drive back to his apartment.

_“Mr Andor, is there... is there something you would like to ask Miss Erso about that day?”_

_He frowns and hesitates for a while, then nods and says, eyes trained on his hands: “Yeah, just... just one thing, really. How did you do it? How did you walk through that door?”_

_She shrugs and replies slowly, inspecting her tea cup: “I never knew what you were thinking, and I just... you had that way of looking at me like I’d broken your heart and I... I thought what if he leaves me? And I thought it would kill me, if you left me. So I figured you couldn’t if I got there first. It had to be me. Because if it’d been you... then the best part of my life would just... mean nothing. So I ran. After all, I suppose that’s all I was ever good at.”_

_“That’s not true,” he mutters, but Jyn shakes her head._

_“No, I’m not a good thing to have in someone’s life,” she whispers, her words getting faster and faster, and quieter by the minute. “I make people’s lives so hard. I just... I just hurt everyone. I don’t mean to, it just... It’s hard to imagine anyone would want me around. I’m too hard to handle.”_

_Cassian’s hand clenches in the fabric of his jeans, but she goes on too quickly for him to say anything._

_“You were bound to realise that. You’re smart, and you loved me for some stupid reason but you were bound to see it someday and then you would’ve left and I – I couldn’t stand the thought of that.”_

_The therapist looks like she wants to say something, but he cuts her off, eyes fixed on Jyn even though she keeps her eyes on her hands._

_“Jyn, none of that was your fault.”_

_“None of what?”_

_“Your parents, and Saw, that wasn’t your fault. They should have never left you behind. Your mother didn’t chose to go, but your father and Saw... there is nothing you could have done to deserve what they did to you. And what I did to you... there’s no excuse for that, either. You didn’t deserve it, none of it. It wasn’t your fault.”_

_“Don’t talk about my father like that,” she mutters, but when he takes her hand, she doesn’t pull it away._

"Cassian.“

“Huh? Yes, sorry, what did you-“

“If you want to get dinner somewhere?” she repeats in a listless murmur. “I’m pretty sure the fridge is empty.“

He sighs and stares at the traffic light, still not quite back in the moment. “I'm not hungry. Do you want anything?“

She shakes her head. “I just wanna sleep.”

He glances over at her and finds her looking pale and worn in the unflattering light of the streetlamps shining through her window. In short, she looks like he's feeling.

“Yes. Me too,” he murmurs, tries to throw her a smile and returns what attention he can muster to the traffic.

Jyn falls asleep two blocks from his apartment, and doesn't wake when he parks the car. She looks so content he's almost tempted to just stay in his seat and let her sleep for a while, but then he remembers how fucking cold the car will get when he turns off the motor, so he climbs out with a sigh and opens the passenger door, very slowly so she won't fall right out the way she's leaning against it.

“Hey,” he mutters, a hand on her shoulder, and almost smiles when she frowns up at him sleepily. “I didn't ask… do you want me to take you back to your place?”

Her frown deepens. “Do you want to?”

“No, I'm asking if _you_ want me to,” he says gently, trying to stop himself from rolling his eyes at her. Two months and still she looks at him like she’s scared he’d run off the moment she turns around. He’d feel insulted – if it wasn’t for the fact he’s still flooded with relief every time he opens the door to find her stuff still there.

She shakes her head, climbs out of the car and staggers into him as they make their way to the door. “Why'd I go there? 's all cold,” she mutters into his jacket, and now he does smile a little, relieved and tired, and puts an arm around her shoulder.

She traipses into the bathroom while he puts away leftover dishes from lunch – he hears bottles clatter and finds himself too tired to care if she's knocked anything breakable off the sink, but catches himself thinking, not for the first time, that it would be much easier to move around the bathroom unscathed if she'd just start ranging her things into the cupboards he vacated for her. But Jyn is nothing but stubborn (“We're taking it slow, Cassian, and I'm not living here so I'm not entitled to cupboard space, remember?”) and so everything is balanced on the edge of the sink until she inevitably knocks it all onto the floor.

How can someone be so graceful and so graceless at the same time?

When he crawls underneath the covers, she's already curled up into a tight little ball, right in the _middle_ of the mattress, of course, but she turns over with a little sigh to settle herself against his side instead.

“You alright?” he asks quietly, and doesn't know what kind of answer he's expecting. After that conversation, he knows she's anything but alright, so it's stupid to even ask at all, but –

_You have to talk to me. You have to tell me things._

This is as good as he gets.

“I will be,” she says, her words muffled against his shoulder. “We will be.”

He smiles into the darkness. “Okay. Good.”

“Good,” she echoes and shuffles a little deeper into _his_ pillow. “Sleep.”

He doesn't need to be told twice.

 

* * *

 

**[days: 116]**

It's almost an hour until Chirrut has finished his stories about China this time and she comes to find Cassian leaning against the wall in Bodhi’s kitchen, looking a little exhausted.

“Hey,” she says softly and links her fingers with his. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he mutters and throws her a smile, but she rolls her eyes.

“Try that again?”

He sighs, then shrugs. “It’s just... you know. It’ll get easier, or so I’m told.”

“You didn’t have to come with me,” she says gently and he throws her a dark look.

“Of course I did. They’re my friends, too, and I can’t stay away forever. I get told I have no life far too often as it is. Besides, honestly, it’s not so bad, really. It isn’t. It’s just been a long day.”

She sighs and nods. “Okay. You were here. And now, since you’re sober and all, you can drive me home.”

“Jyn, it isn’t even midnight –“ he starts, but she cuts him off.

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of tired. But if you try to be a little charming, I might still ask you up for a coffee, anyway.”

He smiles. “Alright, fine.” He shakes his head at her and walks over to the host who's chatting to Baze – well, talking _at_ Baze, more like it.

“Bodhi? Bodhi, we’re leaving. Thanks for the invite, it was fun.”

“Already?”

Jyn grimaces and hands Bodhi her empty wine glass with a meaningful glare. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Bodhi looks like he gets she wants to tell him something, but doesn’t get _what._

“Cass, can you grab my coat?”

He raises a brow, looking affronted. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. It’s green.”

“I know it’s green.”

“ _Please.”_

He shakes his head and turns to leave with a heavy sigh. “This is ridiculous. I can speak for myself.”

“You go on ahead, I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Bodhi frowns at her when Cassian has disappeared into the hall. “What the hell was that?”

She sighs. “Look, Bodhi, I’m sorry. We’d love to stay.”

“It’s fine -”

“No, it’s rude, but... we have to cut him some slack. You can only put a sober alcoholic in front of an open bottle for so long.”

Bodhi grimaces. “Oh, shit, I keep forgetting that-”

“And he likes it that way,” she replies with a smile. “Don’t let Kay ruin the rest of your night, okay?”

He grins. “I’ll do my best. Hey, Jyn –“ He catches her by the sleeve, forcing her to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“This... you and him,” he says carefully. “That’s working?”

She smiles a little. “Yes. It is.”

“Good. I mean, you’ve looked pretty happy lately and it’s none of my business, I just don’t –“

“We’re good, Bodhi,” she says softly. “We are. It’s been... it’s been rough, sometimes, but we’re... we’re getting there. We’re in a pretty decent place.”

“Okay, good,” he says and tries for a shaky smile, but then adds tentatively: “If that changed, you’d tell me, right?”

She wants to promise him it won’t, but then settles for a quiet: “Of course.”

He looks at her with his big dark eyes, and her heart still breaks a little at the sight of it. “I can’t do that again, Jyn. I can’t watch you… You’re my best friend. You’re my family, and I…”

“None of us can, and we won’t have to, Bodhi,” she replies gently and hugs him. “Goodnight. Have fun, okay?”

His smile is all softness and worry and a little hope and just a trace of his old sadness. “Yeah. Goodnight, Jyn. Get home safe.”

 

* * *

 

 

 _Green eyes_  
_You're the one that I wanted to find_  
_And anyone who t_ _ried to deny you_  
_Must be out of their minds_  
  
_'Cause I came here with a load_  
_And it feels so much lighter since I met you_  
_Honey, you should know_  
_That I could never go on without you_

 


	3. A little life in you yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, next update might actually no kidding take several months.  
> So I hope you'll enjoy this bit and I hope it's enough to bridge the gap...? 
> 
> Anyways: Songs for this are, for lack of a better suggestion really, _Even the Darkness Has Arms_ \- The Barr Brothers (see quote) and _This Woman's Work_ \- Greg Laswell (title from there)

 

**[days: 155]**

“… and then in the middle of it, there’s a knock on the door, and you know, by now it’s like two AM and you’d think we’d be safe, right? So there’s a knock on the door and then it’s Poe whispering from the other side if daddy’s awake because he did a drawing he wants to show him,” Shara says, tears of laughter in her eyes, and shakes her head.

“What did you do?” Leia is lounging on the seat across of her, her intricate braids slowly coming apart at the edges, cheeks red with laughter.

“Well, Kes was a little preoccupied, right,” Shara says with a sheepish grin, “so I told Poe daddy was sleeping but if he got up early he could show him in the morning. He said he’d go back to bed and I hope to God he did, we didn’t check.”

Jyn’s phone beeps in her pocket – probably Bodhi, or maybe Chirrut with the new work schedule he’s promised he’d make for two months now. She ignores it, grabs another handful of peanuts and turns to Leia.

“How’s Han doing? Rumour has it he’s got a new job.”

Leia smirks. “Rumour meaning Lando, I suppose? Yeah, he dug up that old mechanics diploma and got a place at a garage where they repair oldtimers and all that.” She rolls her eyes. “You can imagine my enthusiasm for our dinner conversations. I never asked to know so much about exhaust pipes.”

“Does he give all of them stupid names or are those reserved for his own car?”

Leia laughs. “I didn’t dare asking. Who knows, he might never shut up again. Anyway, we’ve, um… we’ve actually got better news than that,” she adds with a sudden beaming smile, sounding like she just can’t keep it in any longer. “We’ve had a bit of an… an accident, sort of. Which is why I passed up on the drinks.”

Shara beams at her. “Oh my God, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”

Jyn puts up the best smile she can muster. Something about the subject makes her strangely uncomfortable, though she has no idea why. Maybe it’s just the fact that she’s generally horrible with kids – even though that doesn’t seem to stop Poe from being all over her every time she comes around to visit his Mum, but that’s probably just this little boy’s incessant amount of cheerfulness. She’s never met a human being who has such a never-ending supply of admiration and affection for others, and she’s friends with Bodhi Rook.

Still, it’s a strange subject. It seems to be tinged with a kind of sadness to her that other people don’t seem to get when people talk about children.

She adjusts her smile. “Congrats. So… how long ‘til…?”

Leia shrugs, still smiling. “Eight months. It’s early days, I just found out a couple of days ago. Han was… surprisingly enthusiastic,” she adds with a smirk and Jyn chuckles. She can picture _that._

“You making any plans in that direction?” Shara asks and Jyn freezes and feels the blood rushing to her cheeks.

“Um, I… actually… you know, that, uh –”

Shara seems to pick up on the awkwardness and blushes a little. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, I just –“

“No, no, it’s fine,” Jyn stammers, “it’s just… well, you know I’m pretty terrible with children and my life’s still a bit of a mess and then we really haven’t been back together long and –“

She wrecks her brain for a reasonable reply, but it’s all blaring alarms and flashing red lights up there.

Her phone beeps again, and she feels a rush of deepest gratitude to whoever keeps calling her. “One moment, I’d better see who it is,” she mutters and slips away from the table a lot quicker than she should.

The night air is a relief, cool on her burning cheeks. Oh God, what a disaster. Why the hell did she get so touchy on that subject all of a sudden?

She shakes her head in a non-too successful attempt to clear it and checks her phone.

To her surprise, it’s not Bodhi pestering her about the dinner he’s invited her to on the weekend, or Chirrut.

She frowns and presses call, her mind clearing again.

“Hey, I’m at the pub with Shara and Leia, I left you a note –“

“Yes, I know, I saw,” he replies in a pleasant enough tone, but his voice is off.

“What’s going on?”

“Um… nothing, really, I was – I was just wondering if you’re gonna sleep at your place then?”

Okay, his voice is _definitely_ off.

“Yeah, that was the plan, it’s walking distance –“ she starts, and is cut off by an answer that comes too quickly.

“Okay. Just wanted to know.”

She bites her lip, waits for him to go on, but he doesn’t. “Cassian?”

He sighs. “Alright, fine.” There’s a little pause, then – “Could you not do that? Could you come here instead? Not – not now, just –“

“What’s going on?” she repeats, more intently this time.

He sighs again. “Nothing, I’m fine, I’ve just had a shit day. You know – forget it, have fun.”

She groans and leans her head against the brick wall. “Shut up. I’m on my way.”

“Don’t leave because of –“

“ _Shut up_. Put the kettle on for me, would you? See you in a bit,” she mutters and hangs up, then pops back inside and throws the other two an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, I gotta run,” she says, fishing a handful of dollar notes out of her purse.

Shara frowns a little. “You’re not angry at me, are you?”

“No. It’s just… Cassian called and he never does and he wouldn’t really tell me what’s going on but it sounded work-related, so maybe Kes knows?” She shrugs a little and takes her jacket from Leia. “I don’t know, I just… We’ll catch up some other time, okay?” she adds and tries for a more substantial smile.

“Sure. You’d better go see if he’s alright,” Leia says, smiling back at her in that reassuring way she has. “Give him my love, okay?”

“Yeah, I will. Congratulations, Leia. See you,” Jyn mutters and gives a lame wave, then heads for the door.

 

“You shouldn’t have –“

“Shut up, Cass, seriously,” she mutters. “You called me for a reason. What’s going on?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Like I said, I had a shit day. I just… I just didn’t want to sleep alone, I was – I was worried if I couldn’t sleep, I might resort to my old methods and –“

She nods and puts a hand on his arm. “Okay. You wanna tell me what happened?”

“No, I… it’s nothing, I’m fine, I didn’t get hurt or anything,” he says vaguely and doesn’t look at her.

“Cassian.”

He sighs again. “Our case, it’s… it was a _kid,_ Jyn,” he says in a small, strange voice that sounds nothing like him. “It was a five year-old boy, shot and left in a dumpster, I just…” He shakes his head, fingers back in his hair, and resumes in a slightly firmer voice: “It just got to me, that’s all.”

She bites her lip and takes a few deep breaths. She’d love to say she gets it, but she doesn’t, not quite – because she knows Cassian can spend his day hunting for a dismembered body strewn across the city and come home and sleep fine, but then sometimes he catches a case that seem to rattle him to the bone even though it seems comparably less horrible than other things he’s dealt with, and she never quite knows the difference between these and the others.

He sighs again. “Have you eaten?” he asks, getting up to stir in his pot.

“Yeah, but if you made enough for two, I’d try some of that,” she replies and smiles. “Smells good, what is that?”

He shrugs. “I improvised. There wasn’t a lot left in the fridge, so…”

“Shit, I said I’d go shopping, right?” she mutters, grimacing, and he grins.

“It’s fine. You’re the one not getting any breakfast.”

“Hey!” She shakes her head at him, pours herself a cup of tea and leans against the counter, her shoulder bumping into his.

He is silent for a moment, then says: “You needn’t have come home so early just because –”

“Don’t be silly. Besides, I kind of wanted to,” she mutters. “It got weird. Leia’s pregnant–“

“Really?” he asks, almost smiling. “That’s great. I mean, poor kid with a father like that, but still.”

Jyn chuckles. “Yeah. She sends her love, by the way. Anyway, Shara asked if I had any baby plans, too, and then it got embarrassing…” She buries her face in the crook of his neck with a groan.

“That bad?”

“No, I…” She sighs. “I just wasn’t prepared for that question, I guess.”

“Really, you never thought about it?” he asks, his tone perfectly neutral and still… She fidgets with her cup nervously and replies rather lamely after a moment:

“I guess the only conclusion I ever came to was that I’d be a terrible mother.”

“You can’t know that, Jyn,” he says gently and she throws him a dark look.

“Seriously? I’m a former criminal with a drug history who grew up with a dead mother and an absent father and who couldn’t even manage being anyone’s wife. I think I _can_ know that I couldn’t manage to be anyone’s _mother_ , Cassian.”

“People change, Jyn,” he replies, still in his calm tone. “We _have_ changed. Besides, I think you’re wrong. When you commit to something, you stick with it. You’re loyal and strong and perfectly capable of loving people your whole life, and you take care of people. You protect them. You’d be a hell of a mess, but I don’t think you’d be a _bad_ mother.”

“Do you give this a lot of thought?” she asks slowly and he gives a helpless little shrug.

“It never feels like the right moment to consider it, right?” He piles food onto two plates and adds slowly: “I don’t know. I don’t _not_ think about it.”

She smiles a little, follows him into the living room and flops down on the couch. “But you have to concede, I _am_ terrible with children, and so are you.”

He grins and hands her a plate. “Poe loves us.”

“Poe loves _everyone.”_

“Not Kay,” he gives back and she laughs.

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame him,” she mutters and then starts wolfing down a spoonful of food, which is a cheap but effective way to back out of this mildly distressing conversation.

He finishes his plate without hurry – probably employing the same embarrassing technique – then puts it down on the floor and rests his head on her shoulder.

She laces her fingers though his hair and pulls him a little closer. “You sure you’re alright?”

He sighs. “I’ll be fine, Jyn. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Okay,” she mutters.

He smiles a sad little smile and laces his fingers with hers. “It just reminded me of… Nobody warned me… like I said, I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” she repeats softly and grips his hand a little firmer. “You don’t want to talk about it.”

He hums an unintelligible reply and adjusts his position, stretching out a little and trying to fit his long legs onto the narrow couch.

“Hey, you needn’t have told me to come over if you were going to shove me off your couch,” she says and he grins and pulls her a little closer.

“Haha.”

“I could distract you, you know?” Jyn says slowly, running her fingers through his hair.

He smiles a little and hides his face in her sweater for a moment. “No offence, but that won’t work right now. Can I take you up on it later?”

“Yeah, I like you,” she replies with a grin and pulls up her feet, curling up against him. “I’ll consider it. Hand me that book?”

He sighs and reaches for the novel precariously balanced on the edge of the coffee table, then frowns down at the cover. “This looks like a really cheerful read.”

“It is not, but it’s actually pretty good,” she replies and takes the book from him. “I’m catching up on my classics.”

“For a specific reason?”

She gives a dramatic groan and settles herself against his shoulder. “Because I used to be _educated_! I went to an expensive school and my dad used to read me science articles and now…” She shrugs and flicks through the pages. “What did I do with my life? Other people my age…”

Cassian frowns at her. “Jyn –“

“No, seriously! I could’ve gone to university, I could’ve –“

“You still can.”

Jyn scoffs. “Right. Yeah. I still could. At _twenty-nine_.”

“Jyn, some people go to college at fifty.”

“Yeah, and that’s _sad,_ ” she replies firmly, and he shakes his head.

“No, it’s not. It’s not too late, Jyn. You’re not even thirty yet. You can get five college degrees if you want to, or you can climb Mount Everest or have three children or hike through Antarctica, okay?”

She frowns a little. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Don’t know,” he replies. “Point is, you’re young and you have all the time in the world.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that sentence applied to me,” Jyn mutters and he grimaces.

“Yeah, well, I’ve known too many people it didn’t apply to,” he replies in an equally morose tone.

She sighs and finds her page. “You know you talk like someone’s grumpy grandpa, right?” she says in a lazy attempt to lighten the mood after a while, and he snorts and lets his eyes fall shut.

“That’s really romantic, Jyn.”

“I know. I have a gift.”

He grins, eyes still closed, and pulls her a little closer.

“Come on, Cass, just get to bed and sleep.”

“I’m all good right here,” he mutters in a quiet tone and it tugs at her heart just a little.

He is _not_ fine. She hopes he’s right, that he will be in a few days – thing is, she has no way to tell if she doesn’t know what the hell is wrong. But she decides not to press the issue. If it was to do with her, he’d tell her.

(Right?)

 

* * *

 

_Even the darkness has arms_  
_But it ain't got you_  
_And baby I have it_  
_And I have you too_

 

* * *

 

 

**[days: 191]**

“How can your income be so high and your balance so low, Jyn?” Cassian asks with a frown, glancing over her bank statements.

She doesn’t take her eyes off her print-out, and replies with a shrug: “Debts, you know?”

He raises a brow. “The kind I should be worried about?”

“No. No!” she says hastily, her eyes flickering up to him and a smile hurriedly plastered on her lips. “Just delayed payments, that kind of crap.”

He glances down at the checks and balances and sighs, then asks tentatively: “Jyn... how much rent are you paying for this place?”

Her eyes dart up again, narrowed in surprise and caution. “We said we wouldn’t.”

“We said we’d go slow. It’s been half a year. We didn’t spend one night in separate apartments in the last two months. There’s no point in having two places anymore, and Jesus, this shithole has _one_ window, and you’re paying –“ His eyes find the monthly rent payment. “You’re paying _way_ too much for it.”

“You want me to move in with you? For good?” she asks tentatively, looking oddly vulnerable all of a sudden.

 _I’m not a good thing to have in other people’s life,_ he hears her strained whisper once again, and the thought makes his heart clench. _I make people’s lives so hard. I just... I just hurt everyone. I don’t mean to, it just... It’s hard to imagine anyone would_ want _me around. I’m too hard to handle._

“Yes,” he says firmly, holding her gaze and hoping to God she takes his full meaning. “Yes, I want that. I want you in my bed when I wake up in the morning. I want you blocking the bathroom when I have to get to work,” he adds with a grin, “I want all of your mess and your laundry heaps on my floor and your terrible excuses for not taking the trash out. I’m still not sure how to explain to you that the dirty dishes don’t float into the dishwasher just because you put them on top of it, but we can figure that out later.”

She grins, but then says softly: “I just... I just don’t want it to be the way it was.”

He looks at her for a moment, thinking, then says slowly: “Well, I got a pay raise. We could find somewhere else. Someplace without old memories. New furniture.”

She still doesn’t look convinced, so he adds: “You could actually put some money to the side –“

“I’m not letting you pay rent for me, Cassian. No way.”

He rolls his eyes. “I earn more.”

“ _No. Way,_ ” she repeats, arms crossed, and Cassian has to fight down a grin.

“Fine. Pay half. It would still be less. You could stop spending money on food you let rot in the fridge, that’d be at least a hundred dollars more –“

“Hilarious,” she drawls and rolls her eyes, but he cuts her off.

“I just threw out half of what you had. Seriously. It’s a waste of money.”

She sighs heavily. “Okay, fine. Before you start telling me the benefit for electricity bills –“

He nods and fights to keep the smile off his lips. “It would save you a lot of money. It’s a win-win.”

“Yeah? What are you winning?” she asks lightly, and he swallows down a surge of frustration and has to force himself not to point out to her that he shouldn’t have to explain why he wants to have her around…

(And then there’s the painful question he can’t quite ignore: is it his fault or hers that she doesn’t know?)

“You realise I’ve been putting off vacation for months because you refuse to let me pay for your ticket?” he says instead and sighs. “Come on, Jyn. You could spend that money on better things. Go on these travels you keep talking about, write your articles. Take Bodhi to London for a couple of weeks. Make a...,” he hesitates, but then says the rest anyway, before the moment has passed, “make an actual home for ourselves.”

She looks up at him, biting her lip, until finally a grin spreads on her lips.

“You really want this?”

“I really want this.”

 “Okay,” she mutters. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s be adults about it.” She gets to her feet and winds her arms around his neck, presses a kiss to his lips. He winds his fingers through her hair and holds her there, allows himself to relish in the _peace_ of her body warm against his.

_“Grace. The word for the universe throwing us a bone even though we don’t deserve it.”_

The memory makes him smile. She really hit the nail on the head with that – yes. Grace. This is the incandescent feeling that his grandmother spoke of when she tried to explain to him why going to church meant so much to her.

 _I found it,_ _abuela_ _,_ he thinks and the thought only stings a little. _I know what you meant now._

 A grin tugs at Jyn’s lips, pulling him out of his musings.

“There's one thing I’d like to know, though...”

“What?”

“Where is it that you want to take me so badly?” she asks, her voice teasing, but actual curiosity in her eyes.

He grins. “I’m not telling you that. You’ll see soon enough.”

She sighs and shrugs a little, pressing another kiss to his lips before getting back to her paperwork. “Worth a try.”

 

* * *

 

**[days: 273]**

They’re in the kitchen putting away the (alarmingly high) pile of dishes left over from dinner when Bodhi enters, then stops in the doorway with a strange look on his face and announces, his hand curling around the doorframe:

“Guys? I, uh, I have something else. For you both.”

“Jesus, Bodhi,” Jyn murmurs, “it’s not even my thirtieth, you don’t have to –“

“Yeah, I do,” he replies and shrugs a little. “Because it was technically never mine.”

She sighs, puts the pan in her hand into the sink and sits down. “Okay, I’ll bite. The hell are you talking about?”

Bodhi takes a seat opposite her and begins tentatively: “The third time you were... the third time you got arrested? For smashing that window in the Irish pub?”

Jyn’s frown deepens. “You came to bail me out.”

“Yeah. You were probably too smashed to remember but... you never called me.” Bodhi pauses, looking hesitant, then his eyes flicker up to Cassian. “He did.”

Cassian leans against the wall with a heavy sigh. “Bodhi, you _promised_ –“

“The fifth time, he called me, too. I’d just paid the rent, and I had to buy a new washing machine. I couldn’t afford the bail. Neither could you. So he...“

Jyn bites her lip and stares at the table top, looking pained. “ _Cassian_.”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t let you rot in there, could I? You were never supposed to know.”

She turns in her seat to face him, an irritated frown on her face this time. “Oh, like that makes it _better_ –“

“Can you guys listen to me for one minute?” Bodhi says with an exasperated sigh. “After that, he...” He catches Jyn’s glare, falls silent and then turns to Cassian. “A little help here, mate?”

Cassian sighs, buries his hands in his pockets and concedes with a dark look into Bodhi’s direction: “I sent him money. In case he had to bail you out again.”

“Once?”

“Twice,” Cassian says haltingly, then: “Twice a year.”

“You _what?_ ”

Bodhi sighs again. “Anyway. It was... quite a bit of money. I didn’t need most of it.”

“Keep it,” Cassian says reflexively. “Please. I don’t want it.”

“Yeah, well, me neither.” Bodhi says flatly. “But you said you wanted to go on holiday.”

“Yeah. We will, when I... once I got the money together, Bodhi, you don’t have to –“ Jyn stammers, still looking deeply uneasy, but Bodhi cuts her off.

“Jyn, I’ve been sitting on that money for years and I don’t want it, okay? I don’t want to have an account labelled _bail for Jyn._ I want rid of it and it’s not mine, so I’m buying your tickets, and you can have the rest for the hotel or what not. You tell me where and when, and we can all forget I ever had any of it.”

“Bodhi –“

“Please, Jyn. I really, _really_ don’t want it. So say thank you and enjoy your holiday.” He gets to his feet and tries for a smile. “Happy birthday, okay?”

“Yeah,” she says faintly, staring after him with a lost sort of expression on her face. Then after a moment, she turns to Cassian and asks very quietly: “Why did you do that?”

“You really have to ask?” he gives back in a voice that sounds too hard and too hurt for the way she’s looking at him, but he can’t help it.

She casts her eyes down. “You shouldn’t have –“

“You would have done the same,” he cuts her off quietly and she sighs and nods, then wordlessly gets to her feet and follows Bodhi into the hall.

 

* * *

 

 

**[days: 316]**

“Okay, it’s getting ridiculous. We’re _at the airport._ You’re going to have to tell me where we’re going eventually,” she says, tugging at his jacket, but he smirks at her and casts a glance around the duty-free area, then guides her towards one of the food places.

“I’m about to. You want a coffee?”

“ _Cassian_.”

He grins. “Sit down. We’re getting coffee.”

“I hate you.”

He laughs, and she glares after him. She hasn’t got much further to the core of the mystery when he returns with two steaming paper cups.

“Okay, so I know we’re going somewhere moderately warmer than here. Which could be anything from California to Bulgaria, so that’s not a lot to go on.”

He grins and hands her one of the cups. “I can’t believe you’re not even guessing in the right direction. You were married to a cop.”

“So you’ll admit your work is targeted guessing? That’s something,” she says, brows raised, and he sighs but smiles a little.

“You said you want me to make you a part of my life,” he says after a moment and her eyes flicker up to meet his, taking in his suddenly serious tone.

“I realised I only ever gave you twelve years of it.”

She frowns at him in confusion. “What?”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the tickets and hands her one. Jyn grins at him and puts the ticket down on the table, face down, suddenly wanting to draw out the surprise a little while longer.

“Do I get to be a big girl and carry my own ticket now?”

Cassian shrugs. “That’s about as far as I can keep it secret. I can’t get you into an airplane blindfolded, across borders. They’d think I was kidnapping my ex-wife or something.”

She knows it’s a joke so she makes herself laugh, but it doesn’t come so easily. _Ex-wife_ is a term she definitely doesn’t appreciate being applied to her, true though it might be, and it’s only getting harder the more she hears it.

“I know being with me must feel like every minute takes forever, but we’ve known each other for eight years, give or take, not twelve.”

Cassian shakes his head. “You know about twelve years of my life. This,” he waves towards the ticket on the table, “that’s the other twenty-one.”

She frowns a little and picks up the ticket. “That’s not cryptic at...” Her voice fades to nothing when her eyes find the flight destination.

She can feel him looking at her, but doesn’t meet his gaze for a moment, collecting herself. She wasn’t expecting this, and she would not admit this under torture but her throat tightens just a little.

“When was the last time you went?” she asks in a small kind of voice.

“Nine years ago, I think. Maybe more,” he replies with a strange little smile. “You seem surprised.”

“I am,” she replies, returning his smile. “Hate to admit it, but I am.” Shaking her head a little, she adds: “I’m impressed you’ve managed to keep this secret, what with Bodhi knowing.”

He smirks. “Oh, everyone knew. Kay wasn’t too pleased about the idea.”

“Why does he care where we’re going?”

Cassian grimaces. “He said he wouldn’t let me leave for another trip until I promised I would not get married to anyone.”

Jyn huffs and shakes her head, and swallows down the inexplicable sting of those words. “He just gets more charming with every year that passes, right?”

“He means well,” Cassian says in a tired voice and Jyn shakes her head.

“All the times you’ve said that to me, and I still don’t believe it. James Kay cares about two things, and neither of them is me.”

“Well, one of them is me,” Cassian replies with a shake of the head. “So he cares by extension.”

“That’s a comfort,” Jyn mutters and sips at her coffee. “You know, I never got this. Bodhi _adores_ you –“

“Bodhi would strangle me to death at the slightest incentive,” Cassian argues with a fond little smile.

Jyn rolls her eyes. “Yeah, because you hurt me. But he does, you know, he admires you so much. He looks up to you. How are you the civil, social one out of the two of us and yet have the most insufferable friend?”

Cassian finishes his coffee and replies slowly: “He’s difficult, but so am I. We’ve been through a lot. He’ll come to like you eventually.”

She chuckles and shakes her head. “Yeah, how long’s that gonna take?”

“God knows,” Cassian replies with a shrug. “So, I hope you’re happy we have a short flight.”

“I sort of am, yes,” she mutters and smiles. “I don’t have very _fond_ memories of my transatlantic flights.” She sips at her coffee and watches him for a while. “You waited half a year to take this trip. Cassian, if it means so much to you then you shouldn’t have –“

“Jyn, taking you with me is the whole point,” he replies matter-of-factly, the way he always manages to say these things like it’s not hard at all to voice them. She envies him so much for that.

She can’t quite find the right words, but she tries for a smile and gets out as much as: “Well, I’m glad I get to come,” and even though it’s too quiet and too little, he returns her smile and she thinks he understood well enough.

.

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, Aéromexico flight 3569 to Mexico City is now ready for boarding. All passengers please proceed to Gate 37. Señoras y señores...”_

 

  
  



	4. Mexico, I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to short, unrelated and insanely sappy ^^  
>  ~~I said sappy and I deliver, guys~~

**[days: 316]**

She falls asleep on the plane, her head against his shoulder. It’s only a four-hour flight, short for her standards, but she is not surprised. She always sleeps on planes.

When she wakes up, the seat belt signs have lit up again, and Cassian’s eyes are fixed on the tiny window.

“How long ‘til we land?” she asks blearily and blinks the sleep out of her eyes.

“Thirty-three minutes,” he answers softly and throws her a smile that is very well faked, but fake all the same.

She links her fingers with his and settles against his side again. “Are you okay?”

There’s a pause that she’s come to know as the moment he takes to swallow the default _yes of course, don’t worry about me._ “I think so. Strange, though. I don’t know… I don’t know if I want it to feel like home or not.”

“Yeah,” she mutters, thinks of her flight to Britain, and grips his hand a little tighter. “I know the feeling.”

His thumb rubs over the back of her hand and his eyes return to the stained window pane. “Thank you,” he says softly after a while.

“For what?”

A smile flickers over his face for a moment and his fingers tighten around hers. “Not making me come back on my own, I guess.” There’s a small pause, then he adds, more to himself: “All of it.”

She leans her head against his shoulder and apparently dozes off for another moment, until she is woken by the little boy in the seat in front of them excitedly chattering to his mother in Spanish and pointing at the window.

Jyn leans past Cassian and catches a glimpse of the city stretching out a long way below them, interjected with a few big strokes of luscious dark greens. A strange feeling swells in her chest at the sight of it; she never really thought about going, never _actively_ planned to see it, or at least she can’t remember. But suddenly it seems inevitable, right and wrong all at the same time, and she catches herself thinking _I should have come here sooner_. Maybe it would have helped. Maybe, if she’d seen where he’d come from, if she’d known a little more about him, maybe –

“There’s no need for _you_ to looks so nervous, Jyn,” he mutters, a small smile playing around his lips, but his eyes look worried.

She wants to shrug it off with a joke and almost does, until she remembers that _she_ promised to talk about things, too.

“Just wondering what took me so long,” she mutters, fixing her shoes, and he grimaces.

“I haven’t been here since before I met you, so if anyone should be feeling guilty, it’s me. And I’ve never been to England either.”

“Then that’s next on the list, isn’t it?” she replies and he smiles.

“I didn’t know there was a list.”

She shrugs and leans back in her seat so he can see. “I just made it. It has one entry. Can you call that a list?”

“We can make it longer,” he replies, still with that slight smile, and she doesn’t miss how hungrily his eyes devour the view.

This will be good for them, she reminds herself. Good for him, most definitely, and that’s enough either way.

His fingers lace with hers, and don’t let go when they land. The airport is swarming with people and he pulls her closer as they file out of the building with the rest of the crowd. He doesn’t talk, drinks in the surroundings without a word. She smiles to herself, presses his hand and lets herself be led outside.

“We can’t walk to the hotel, right?”

Cassian flinches a little, then turns to smile at her somewhat guiltily. “Sorry, uh… No, we definitely can’t. We’ll take a taxi,” he mutters and presses a kiss to her temple. “This way.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, if you had told me where we were going, I might have actually learned some Spanish and you wouldn’t have to buy my coffee for me this time,” she says with a slight frown.

“I don’t mind buying your coffee for you, Jyn,” he replies gently, then adds with a lopsided smile: “As sad as that sounds, I’m stupidly glad I get to do it.”

She returns his smile for a moment. “Seriously, I was planning to!”

“You were?”

“Yes. Stop looking surprised.” She sighs and sips at her coffee, watching people filing out of the church across the square for a while, then asks tentatively:

“We never got married in a church. Did that bother you?”

Cassian frowns. “Why would it?”

“Your folks were Catholic, right?”

He shrugs. “I’m not, well, not practicing. Let’s be grateful we didn’t, though,” he adds with a lopsided smile. “Imagine trying to divorce _that._ ”

She fights down her misplaced amusement. “You’re avoiding the question, Cassian.”

He sighs and stirs in his cup. “I thought about it, once or twice. That they would’ve wanted me to. But I...” He shrugs and throws her a fleeting smile. “I don’t know, it didn’t really matter. We _were_ married. That was enough.”

She smiles a little and closes her eyes, turning her face toward the sun. “Wish it had been, yeah,” she mutters and hears him sigh.

“Jyn, I didn’t mean –“

She blinks into the sunlight. “I know, I know. It’s just… just being back here, I guess. I don’t know, I miss it.”

“Jyn,” he says in a strained tone and she grimaces.

“I know, don’t –“ She sighs and picks up her coffee. “No reproach, I was just saying it. I feel like we should maybe _talk_ to each other a little this time around.”

He smiles faintly. “Well, in our defence, _talking_ isn’t really the point of a honeymoon.”

“Don’t think I’m complaining,” she gives back with a grin and gets to her feet. “Well, we have an hour of sunlight left, right?”

She takes his hand and pulls him up. “Come on, show me around.”

He smiles a little. “This wasn’t exactly my neighbourhood, Jyn.”

“Well, then,” she replies and rolls her eyes, “let’s just randomly wander like any other tourist.”

“Not too far, maybe. We have a very nice hotel room, you know. I think there isn’t even sand all over the bed this time,” he says with a grin. “We should make time to appreciate that.”

She laughs. “Definitely. Anything else would be ungrateful.”

He pulls her closer and presses a kiss to her hair. “I’m glad we’re doing this. I’ve _missed_ you.”

“Good,” she mutters, grinning, and pulls him down for an actual kiss. “That’ll teach you to relapse into your old working hours.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs and throws her a rueful smile. “But it wasn’t just my fault, you know?”

“Those kids _need_ me,” Jyn replies softly and he grins at her.

“So does your –“ She can’t help but hear how he misses a beat, then he goes on: “…your boyfriend.”

It stings. Every damn time this happens, it _stings,_ even after all this time.

She kisses him again, worried her voice might betray the hurt, then mutters: “I know. And I’m all about making use of that hotel room, but I kind of want to see some of the place you so desperately wanted to take me.”

He bites his lip in a very unsuccessful attempt to stop a smile, and pulls her close. “I love you.”

“You get _so_ sappy on holiday,” she mutters into his shirt, hiding her stupid smile.

“There’s my girl, I was getting worried,” he replies drily and she laughs, pushing him away.

“Come on. I want to see that church at least.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you coming to bed?”

“Yeah, in a moment.” She sighs and stares down at the city lights, fingertips hovering in front of the glass pane. “Isn’t it strange how much there is we don’t know about each other? After all this time?”

He shrugs. “There’s stuff you don’t know, and there’s stuff I sort of wish you will never know. We have our pasts.” He runs a hand through her hair and adds slowly, cautiously: “You know you’re not my whole world. But you’re the best thing in it.”

She smiles weakly and links her fingers with his, pulling him closer. “Wow, you’re the biggest sap I’ve ever known,” she says in a feeble attempt at being stand-offish, and he sighs and leans his head against hers.

“You can always ask. I’ll tell you,” he adds softly. “I might not want to, but if you ask then I’ll tell you.”

She sighs. “That’s fair. Likewise.”

“Thank you.” He presses a kiss to her neck and smiles. “So. Are you coming to bed?”

 


	5. Mexico, II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, most of this chapter was done since about February? But it was even more depressing and weird than it is now, so I spent most of the last month trying to whittle it down a bit. The finished product is... still depressing.  
> Consider this a warning - but tbh if you got through the rest of this series, this won't kill you ^^
> 
> Also DISCLAIMER I am not catholic or generally religious, I mean absolutely no offense to Catholicism or Christianity or whatnot, I am just winging this and crossing my fingers I am getting stuff right!

**[days: 319]**

It’s only late afternoon, but her feet are tired, and there’s something exhausted and sad sitting in Cassian’s eyes flickering up more and more often.

“Should we go back, have dinner?” she asks softly.

“I’m just going to…” Cassian sighs and fixes his eyes on the tips of his shoes, then resumes slowly: “I’ll just stay for a moment, I… I won’t be long, maybe half an hour. Just, I don’t know… go on ahead, get a glass of wine at the restaurant or something… You know the stop, right?”

Jyn frowns at him. “What are you on about?”

He sighs again, still avoiding her eyes, and nods towards the church. “This is where we always went, I… I should go. Pray for my grandmother, see the grave, that kind of thing. You don’t have to come, just go back to –“

She shakes her head vigorously, reaching for his shoulder. “No. I’ll come along, or I’ll wait here.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. I want to.”

Cassian frowns a little but nods, slowly. “Alright,” he mutters, not sounding very convinced, and takes her hand. “You shouldn’t wait _here_ , though. Come on.”

She follows him down the road to the gate, then hesitates. He turns to her, looking worried.

“You okay?”

She grimaces and shakes her head. “Yeah, I… it’s fine.”

He throws her a dark look. “Jyn.”

“It feels wrong is all,” she mutters and stares at their shoes.

“What does?”

She shrugs. “Coming here –“

He puts a hand on her shoulder and there’s a strange smile on his face. “Jyn, look, you just wait here, I told you, you don’t have to come with me.”

“No, no, I just mean – I just mean it feels _wrong_ to come here… Cassian, this is the closest I could get to meeting your family. Your _catholic_ family. And I walk in there as your ex-wife?”

He gives her a very blank stare for a moment, then looks like he’s torn between laughing and his usual all-out fussing routine, then seems to settle for the latter.

“Jyn.”

“I know it’s stupid –“

Cassian grimaces. “No. No, it isn’t. Look…” He pauses, frowns. “Is that what you think you are? My ex-wife?”

“Well, I am!”

“Yes, on paper, but –“ He sighs. “It doesn’t help to tell you that’s not what you’re to me, right?”

She laughs a little and shakes her head at him, still staring at the dusty earth at her feet. “Nope.”

“Okay.” He sighs a little and leans against the graveyard wall. “Divorce isn’t – well, unless you count that as sixth commandment, and let’s not –” There’s something very strained in his voice that she decides to get into at a later date. “Honestly, Jyn,” he says with a broken little smile, “I’ve done a lot of things that would make my family sick just looking at me, and our marriage failing is not even close to making the list.”

She grimaces. “I… I can’t explain, it just feels wrong.”

He looks at her for a while, then nods. “I can’t tell you if they’d have a problem with it,” he says softly. “It’s not exactly something I ever talked to them about. You really don’t have to come.”

“No, I want to. When I went to… to my parents’ grave, in London, I kept thinking of you. I wanted you there.”

“I won’t hold it against you if you don’t come, Jyn,” he says gently. “Seriously. I’m okay.”

 _I would hold it against me,_ she thinks and sighs. “I’m staying.”

He presses a kiss to her temple and mutters: “I’ll go light a candle inside. You want to see the church?”

She smiles faintly and looks down at her bare shoulders and the tiny jeans shorts. “Yeah, in this outfit, I think I might get murdered by some old lady more catholic than you.”

“You’re right. I mean, they wouldn’t _murder_ you,” he says with a faint grin that she doesn’t really buy. “I don’t think. You wait here for me, because there’s something you –”

“Okay.”

He throws her a strange look, then disappears into the church while Jyn lingers idly by the gate, trying to soak up enough sun to get over the threshold.

After a while when he still hasn’t come back out, she slowly starts making her way through the rows of graves. The sun has gone from scorching to pleasant, and she only has a _mild_ sunburn. It’s almost peaceful.

Amongst all the unfamiliar names and what she assumes are bible quotes, suddenly a familiar one catches her eye.

She crouches down in front of the headstone, scanning the engraving. There is something that bothers her, but she can’t put her finger on it.

The first, she identifies at a glance as probably being the grandfather, who died in the seventies, his wife below him.

The lowest on the headstone looks to be the aunt who Cassian lived with for a while.

Then, with a pang, she realises something else. There are three other people on the tombstone, not two, and they all died the same year. Her mind races.

Both his parents, dead at twenty-six and thirty. She’d always assumed it had been a car accident or something… but there’s the same year underneath the fifth name, and the sight makes the bile rise in her throat.

_Marco Andor Vélez. 1984 – 1989_

A memory tugs at the corner of her mind and she drops to her knees before she can lose her balance for good.

_“Our case, it’s… it was a kid, Jyn. It was a five year-old boy, shot and left in a dumpster, I just… It just got to me, that’s all.”_

_“It just reminded me of… Nobody warned me… like I said, I’ll be fine.”_

And suddenly it all fits. That time when they were still married and she found him sitting in bed at five in the afternoon, shivering and silent with that goddamn thousand-yard stare on his face and she strong-armed Kes Dameron into telling her about his case the next day, and he said they’d found a man and his son shot in an alley.

That time he caught the case of a young couple from Monterrey killed in a park and didn’t sleep for days.

The fact that he took three months to mention in passing that he had a brother, and never told her his name, or what that brother was doing now, or ever spoke of him again – she’d assumed they’d fallen out somehow, that maybe his brother pulled some shit, went to prison or something, because Cassian never reacted when she tried to bring the subject up again.

_Oh God._

She feels sick.

 

* * *

 

When he steps out into the sunlight, the sudden brightness makes his head spin. His feet feel far too heavy.

He glances towards the gate, looking for Jyn, for some kind of fixture, but she’s not standing where he left her. After a moment, his eyes find a white spot between the row of graves and his heart sinks.

He makes his way over to her, too slowly, feeling like someone filled his insides with lead.

He should really say something, but – his head is empty and it’s spinning and it _hurts,_ he should say something but he has no idea what, and he hasn’t even reached her when she beats him to it.

“Did you tell me?” she whispers, fingers balled up in her shorts. “Did – did you tell me what happened? Did you and somehow I forgot?”

“No, God, no, Jyn –“

“ _I didn’t know,_ ” she breathes, voice all shattered, and there are tracks of tears down her face when she looks up at him. “How could you let me be your _wife_ and not _know_ –“

“Jyn,” he murmurs, but she shakes her head and stares helplessly at the headstone.

“I never asked how your parents died,” she says, too quietly. “I thought it was a car accident. You _let_ me think that –“

“Yes,” he answers softly.

She is starting to shake a little. “I didn’t _know_ he was… we were _married,_ Cassian! We were married, and I didn’t know this.”

“Jyn, I –“

She turns back and gives him a blazing look, her green eyes bright with tears. “ _Why?_ ”

He feels slightly sick. He holds out a hand, but she doesn’t take it.

“Hey. Come here,” he murmurs, and when she doesn’t move, he kneels down next to her and tentatively reaches out for her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She sounds a little calmer now, but the look in her eyes doesn’t go away.

“I never told anyone, not after I left.” He grimaces and pulls her closer. The warmth might be all that keeps him together, at this point. He keeps his eyes on her, away from where she’s staring at. “I was a walking cliché, right? With my whole family shot in a fucking alley.” He rests his head against hers and adds, softly: “And then it got so _easy_. Nobody knew. Nobody asked. And I… I didn’t have to… to think about it.”

She links her fingers with his and he presses them, a little too firmly.

“I just… I never talked about this, I…” He sighs and buries his face in her hair. “Why do you think I never came here in nine years?”

“You were supposed to _talk_ to me, Cassian,” she whispers and he bites his lip, swallowing a few times.

“I know. I know. I’m – I’m sorry, Jyn. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He sighs deeply. “I was going to tell you, I always was, I just… there wasn’t really a moment for it, I mean… ‘ _I don’t want this to be a fling, I want to be with you, by the way, my little brother was shot when he was five’. ‘Marry me, and by the way, I had a little brother but he died and I haven’t spoken his name since I was seven.’_ Damn it, how do you _say_ that? _When_ do you bring that up?”

Jyn gives a terrible little whimper, still staring at the engraving. It tears at his heart, and the sight of that damn stone is threatening to suffocate him.

“And then I… I don’t know, then it just felt like I should have told you sooner and I felt so guilty about it and…” He sighs and shakes his head. “The year we got divorced I forgot his birthday,” he whispers, not sure why. Somehow he’s just making things worse, but he doesn’t know how to stop talking. “I got drunk, I forgot what day it was and I missed his fucking twenty-fifth birthday.”

She sighs and pulls him closer, almost subconsciously, face still painfully blank.

“He would have probably been insufferable at twenty-five. Always had his head full of nonsense.”

She tries a smile, but falters. “Well, he was a… he was just a kid,” she mutters and buries her face at his shoulder.  

“I’m sorry,” he mutters into her hair, very much failing to hide the scratching in his throat. “I’m so sorry, I should have told you.”

She curls her fingers around his arm, so tightly it hurts. “What happened?”

He shrugs and buries his nose in her hair. “I don’t know. Mugging, suppose someone freaked out and the robbers panicked... I was at a friend’s house when it happened. My aunt came to pick me up and told me and, um, she never really spoke about it again, and, um… I guess eventually I didn’t, either.” He sighs. “I pulled the file during training. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Oh God,” she says faintly, staring at the headstone. “Oh God, Cassian. I – I’m so sorry _–“_

“Hey,” he mutters and pulls her closer, running a hand over her hair. “I’m sorry, Jyn. I should have told you, I…” He sighs and gets to his feet. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Come on.”

She stares up at him, ignoring his hand. “No, you came here to –” She fights to her feet, slightly unsteady. “Stay, I’ll go –“

“ _No_ ,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. There is a reason he took twenty minutes lighting a candle –he just can’t take the idea of being alone in front of this headstone.

“Please. Don’t go.”

Jyn looks at him, eyes still slightly teary, then slowly reaches out to link her fingers with his and leans her head against his shoulder.

He takes a few deep breaths and presses her hand. “Thank you.”

She falls silent, slowly running her thumb over his hand. For a while, he stares down at the headstone, until his head starts spinning a little. He can’t even remember the last time he stood here and –

“You know,” he whispers, pressing her hand. “I think I might be the worst person alive.”

“Cassian...”

“I wasn’t here in thirteen years, Jyn. I’m the only person still alive and I wasn’t here in _thirteen_ _years_. And I lied to you.”

She sighs and puts an arm around him. “You’re not a bad person.”

He exhales slowly and stares at the headstone. “I literally broke _all_ the commandments.”

For a moment, she looks like she’s just going to shake her head again, then suddenly stills.

“There’s an adultery one in there, right?” she says hesitantly, trying to sound casual and failing _miserably_ , and he presses her hand.

“Yes. And since the priest I went to doesn’t believe divorce is real, I apparently broke that one too,” he mutters. “I said all the Hail Mary’s he told me to and I still felt like shit about it.”

She frowns up at him. “You went to _confession_ because you slept with someone after we were separated for _a year_?”

He shrugs and pulls her closer. “I don’t know, it felt wrong.”

To his surprise, she throws him a cheerless little smile. “You _really_ never thought about getting married in a church? Because that’s about the most catholic thing I’ve ever heard.”

He sighs and buries his face at her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jyn. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She leans her head against his and doesn’t answer, just presses his hand.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he murmurs and she hums a little.

“I’m _supposed_ to be here, Cassian,” she replies very softly and buries her free hand in his hair. “We promised.”

His throat clenches shut. “Jyn –“

“I know, doesn’t count,” she mutters and looks down at the grave with a sigh, then adds before he can say anything: “I would’ve liked to meet them.”

“Yes,” he answers with a strained smile, “I would have liked that too.” He swallows a few times, then crouches down, eyes tracing the dusty names on the headstone.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, holding on to Jyn’s hand for more than just balance at this point.

_I’m so sorry. Sorry it took so long._

He takes a deep breath, fingers brushing over his mother’s name and his little brother’s underneath, then fights to his feet. He can’t take anymore of this, not for the day at least.

It takes so long to remember words, suddenly – probably because he feels like he’s seven again, like he’s seven and the earth on the grave black and fresh and every fibre in his body refusing to believe it; in his head he’s seven and he can count to ten in English and that’s about it –

“Let’s go back, Cass.”

He nods, doesn’t say anything because he’s still not quite back.

The frail smile fades from her lips as soon as it’s come, but she doesn’t let go of his hand until they’ve reached the hotel.

 

She drops down on the bed without a word, kicks off her trainers and hugs her knees to her chest. Her shoulders are all sunburnt, bright red against the straps of her white top – he teased her for that in the afternoon. That feels like a long time ago, suddenly.

“You want something to eat?”

“No.”

He sighs and leans against the wall behind him. “If you want to be alone, I’ll –“

She shakes her head. “I’m not mad,” she says softly, fixing her bare feet. “I mean – I am. But I think I understand.”

“I should have said something,” he mutters and she smiles, a broken little thing, still staring at the sheets.

“When? Spring that on me in a therapy session?”

He sighs and shrugs. “I don’t know. But you’re right. You should have known. You were my wife.”

Somehow, she seems to shrink into herself a little more at that. _Ex-wife,_ she’d said, with an acid tone to it.

Shit.

“Jyn,” he whispers and sits down next to her, trying to put an arm around her without touching the sore skin – unsuccessfully so, going by her little flinch. “I’m sorry, I just – this doesn’t have anything to do with me not… not trusting you or –“ He breaks off, then starts again. “I never learned how to talk about it, and… it wasn’t like there was anything you could _do,_ so… I didn’t see any reason to put that on you. That… God, I’m a coward, you know that –”

She lets her head fall on his shoulder. “Stop. I… I get it. It’s just a lot to take in.”

He adjusts her a little to make them more comfortable and buries his nose in her hair. “I’m still sorry.”

They fall silent for a long time, then she sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“Hey.” Her voice is calmer this time, warm, but he keeps his eyes shut.

“Look, I’m sorry if I… I just didn’t see this coming, I shouldn’t have…” She edges a little closer and brushes her fingers against his cheek. “I’m not mad, okay? I get it. Just tell me what I can do.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he mutters. “It’s my fault.”

“Cassian, it isn’t –“

“I should have said something.”

She sighs and eyes him in slight exasperation, then suddenly a little smirk pulls at her lips.

“Fine. Okay. So make it up to me.”

He frowns at her in confusion and her grin widens.

“Verbal apologies and jewellery will not be accepted.”

It dawns on him that she’s joking, and he finds himself returning her smile faintly. “Okay. Then what?”

A mischievous little spark lights in her green eyes. “Sex or food. If it’s really good.”

"The food?"

She just grins.

“You just said you weren’t hungry,” he mutters, slowly running his fingers over the skin exposed over the waistband of her shorts, and she smiles up at him.

“Huh. Guess that limits your options.”


	6. Mexico, III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which i try to resolve the weird situation I've put myself in with the last chapter... it's still kind of wonky, but I just really want to get to the sappy bit and I hope this will be enough transition...? Yay?

**[days: 320]**

When they come back from breakfast, the air in their room is already way too warm though it’s not even noon – according to the guy who served them breakfast in the morning, they were “lucky” enough to pick an unusually hot summer for their trip – and the sunburn on her shoulders is starting to itch, and in the whole building the air is hot and stuffy and her t-shirt is sticking to her back.

Cassian goes to the bathroom to wash his hands, then awkwardly hovers in the corner while she sits on the bed, staring out of the window. He has been treating her like a live grenade all morning, throwing her worried little glances over the breakfast table and running around with a look on his face like a kicked puppy.

God damn it, she’s had enough. This pained silence that has lingered ever since they woke up is tearing at her nerves.

“Okay, so are you just not going to talk to me today?” she snaps, and thinks that’s about the furthest from what she’s been unsuccessfully trying to put into words for the last thirty minutes. Damn it.

“I – no,” he says, too quickly. “No, what do you want to talk about?”

She scoffs. _What do you want to talk about?_ “Just _stop_ threading on eggshells!”

He grimaces and sits down next to her. “I’m not, I –“

“Yes, you are, you’ve been _weird_ all morning,” she bites back and he sighs.

“I know you’re angry at me,” he says softly. “I deserve it, and there’s no point in acting like you’re not, so…”

“You’ve just _decided_ that. That I’m angry at you, that I don’t feel like having a normal conversation, you’ve just decided that for me,” she hisses, fully aware that she’s being ridiculous, because she _is_ angry at him. But she’s also angry at herself, _because_ she is angry with him. She doesn’t feel like she has a right to be – he’s had this awful thing happen to him when he was _six,_ and he isn’t ready to talk about it, and she is the last person in the world who should be blaming anyone for that.

It wasn’t like she’d ever _asked_ about his family either, had she, and…

“Well, you sound kind of angry,” he says slowly, interrupting her thoughts, which isn’t fair, because how is she ever going to voice what she is thinking if he keeps doing that?

“That’s beside the point!”

He looks confused now, and slightly worried. Great, now _he’s_ worried about _her_ when she’s just found out his whole damn family was _murdered_ –

“Okay…” He sighs, eyes flickering over her face like he’s searching for a specific hint. “Okay. Look, it wasn’t fair for you to find out like that and I should’ve seen that and I didn’t. I was just… probably more upset than I thought and that’s –“ He draws a shaking breath and resumes, even quieter: “That’s no excuse and I’m so sorry and –“

“Say you’re sorry _one_ more time and I will break something, Cassian,” she mutters, feeling her fingers dig into her upper legs. She doesn’t really know what happened, but suddenly she actually is _livid,_ and this place is so cramped and so hot and – “I just – you’re just not _getting_ it –”

“I’m really not,” he says very softly, hands slightly raised and looking increasingly worried. “I get that I’m making it worse but I don’t know why, but… Can you just try to calm down a bit –“

“ _Why is this still about me?”_ she snaps, and there it is, finally. This is what she’s been trying to put her finger on for the last twelve hours –

“Why is this about _me_? About how I’m angry at _you?_ ”

He looks at her with those damn sad dark eyes of his, and he has the nerve to look calmer and stiller the more angry she gets, somehow.

“Because the last thing I want is to see you get hurt, Jyn, and –“

“Why don’t I have that right?” she asks flatly, too loud, far too loud. He flinches a little, shrinks back.

She takes a deep breath, then another, then resumes, in hardly more than a strained whisper this time because apparently her voice has just lost all nuance at this point: “You’ve had this… this _horrible_ thing happen to you, Cassian, and – I know that was a really long time ago, but I’ve _just_ found out and…” _Deep breaths, Jyn._ “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad that this _happened_ to you. But this whole time, you’ve been… You keep making this about me, but it’s _not_ , and…”

He sighs and reaches for her hand. “Jyn –“

She shakes her head to cut him off. “No. It was a dick move, and I will totally rub it in your face the next time you want to call me out on anything, but…” She sighs and stares at the floor for a while, inspecting the spots where the sunlight has bleached out the red carpet, trying to sort her thoughts into somewhat coherent sentences. “You need to stop apologising, because what makes me mad is that I’m _so_ sorry and I wish I could do something to help you and I know I’m over twenty years too late for that to be of any use to you. And that’s not your fault, so you can’t apologise for it, and… I _know_ you’ve had so many years to learn to live with it, but I haven’t and now I have this stupid worry that doesn’t help either of us, but the worrying is still my part and not yours, so just _please_ stop acting like you’re handling a bomb, okay?”

He nods slowly. “Okay. I’ll try. I’d be a lot easier not to look worried if you weren’t crying, though,” he adds with a very feeble attempt at a smile, and she scoffs and runs the back of her hand over her eyes.

Then she curls up at his side, shoes on the sheets be damned, and allows her eyes to fall shut for a moment. This whole situation is so stupid, and so frustrating, but at least now she thinks he gets it. She’s heard the whole _sorry for your loss_ routine far too often herself to believe it would do him any good at this point, so after a little while she says the one thing she can think of that sounds remotely useful. It’s not much, but it’s a thing she’s been longing to hear for most of her own life, so that’s something.

“You’re not alone, Cass.”

He smiles and tugs her a little closer. “I know. I’ve got you.”

 

* * *

 

 

**[days: 323]**

Jyn slows her climb up the goddamn stairs to let him catch up with her, then says: “Remember how you said you’d never been at a hotel with a pool before?”

He frowns a little. “Yes, why?”

She shrugs slightly, then grimaces when the straps of her backpack rub over her barely-healed sunburn. “I just remembered… when my mother went to book holidays for us when I was a kid, my father always made a big show of running after her to the car and telling her it had to be a hotel with a pool or he wouldn’t come.” There is a faint little smile tugging at her lips at the memory, and she lets it stay there while she continues the climb. “I thought it was the funniest thing on earth. He did it every single time.”

He can feel himself smile at the image of tiny little Jyn laughing at her father’s jokes. It sounds like a good life, and he’s glad for that. “I… I remember one time my father took us to a swimming pool, a few months before they…” He pauses, and he can tell from the way she slows her pace that she thinks she should say something, and he hurries to continue to save her the trouble. “I think he wanted me to help teach Marco how to swim. He was so bad at it,” he adds, and suddenly hears himself laugh. It’d been so _funny_ to him then, though, how slowly his little brother had taken to the water, and how much of a fight he’d put up, kicking and screaming until Cassian lost his nerve and pushed him in the water. His brother had been angry with him for that the entire week. “He hated it. It was like trying to bathe a cat or something, he got so _mad_ at us.”

Jyn throws him a slightly wobbly smile. “Sounds like a good day,” she says softly, then ducks through the small door at the end of the stairs, finally stepping out onto the platform.

“Well, _I_ had fun,” he replies with a shrug, following her outside. “Marco didn’t. And I think my father really lost his nerve by the end of it.”

He finds a spot at the rail next to her, squeezed in between a group of Spanish tourists, and looks down at the city. “So, you think it was worth the fucking climb?”

She rolls her eyes at him, staring out at the mass of buildings scattered out up to the horizon into every direction. “It’s funny how cities never feel that big until you see them from above. Have you ever been up here before?”

“Not here. Some other high spots, though. Some of the skyscrapers.” He scoffs. “We should have done that, probably. They have elevators.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she asks idly, and he smiles a little. Of _course_ she’d say that.

The sun is still pleasant up here, with the breeze blowing over the platform, and he leans against the balustrade and idly stares out into the distance, not bothering to look for landmarks – he’d feel like he’s back to the sniping rifle, anyway, if he started trying to map out the place from above, even if they are far too high up for that feeling to make any kind of sense…

“Cass,” she says very slowly, blinking into the sunlight, tearing him out of his thoughts. “Cassian, are you happy?”

He doesn’t know if it’s her tone or if it’s just the words, but it makes his breath catch and his chest tightens.

_Why are you asking me this?  
Because, sometimes, I can’t quite tell._

He looks up at her where she leans against the balustrade, the vast city stretching out beneath, all washed-out pastels in the bright sunlight. More strands of hair have escaped the bun on the nape of her neck, billowing around her face. There’s the touch of sunburn still on her shoulders and her nose, and faint freckles now strewn in-between.

Is he happy?

God, does he even _really_ know what that feels like?

He can look down at the city that he ran away from all those years ago – can turn his back on her and look down, and it doesn’t hurt, and he doesn’t feel that urge to look over his shoulder to see if she’s still there.

He woke up this morning and didn’t hesitate to open his eyes, didn’t lie completely still for a while so to not shatter the illusion in case it was just a dream.

Some part of him, some kind of skin memory, still misses the ring on his hand, still misses the little gleam on Jyn’s finger when it catches the sun, but the sight doesn’t sting the way it used to and his absent ring doesn’t throb like an amputated limb.

And she smiles again when she looks at him, no longer has that splinter of pain in her eyes. He thinks his might have gone, too.

He nods and presses a kiss to her temple. “Yes.”

She smiles faintly and leans into his shoulder. “Good.”

“Still can’t tell?”

“Making sure,” she mutters and reaches out to nick his sunglasses from his nose.


	7. Mexico, IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, remember how back when I said this was going to be the shoddily-written fluffy sticky-sweet happy ending?   
> Yeah, have some of that :)

**[days: 328]**

She’s standing on the balcony when he comes back with the coffee, her loose tank top and her hair moving in the breeze.

“Aren’t you cold in that?” he asks lightly, nudging the door close with his elbow and balancing the coffee cups over to the open doors leading out onto the balcony, and nods towards her bare arms and legs.

“A little. Which one is yours?”

“No idea, try them,” he mutters, shrugging, and returns inside to dig through the suitcase for something warmer. He finds a sweat jacket that was probably black at some point in the distant past, and also definitely was his before it mysteriously disappeared from his wardrobe.

Something small and white topples out of the jacket pocket when he pulls it out of the messy suitcase and he curses under his breath as he crouches down to pick it up. He thought it was a folded note, but it’s heavier than he expected, and there is something oddly familiar about the texture of the yellowish paper, the worn corners and –

It’s an envelope, folded twice, and he doesn’t want to be nosy but he unfolds it anyway because something inside it gives a metal _clink_ when he moves it and this thing between his fingers is so strangely, dizzyingly familiar…

“Your coffee’s getting… Cassian?”

He flinches, feeling caught in the act somehow, and glances up at her. “This, it… fell out of the suitcase,” he finishes softly, something raw creeping into his voice as the realisation dawns on him.

She looks at him for a moment, very still, then slowly puts down her coffee cup on the sideboard. “Yeah, I… I thought, you know, just in case.”

He searches her face for a clue, for confirmation this is going where he thinks it is, still kneeling on the floor, the envelope in hand.

“In case of what?” he asks slowly and she shrugs slightly, eyes flickering to the floor.

“Don’t know. In case… in case I find some courage, I guess.”

“Courage?” he repeats, stupidly – he’s being very unhelpful, he knows, but he _needs_ this spelled out to him, and quick, before his brain draws conclusions he can’t come back from.

She’s still just standing there in the bright ray of sunlight from the open door, looking a little lost. “I miss it,” she whispers. “You’d think I wouldn’t, I guess, but I do. And I know how much it meant – I know you do as well,” she finishes softly.

“I see my poker face has suffered, then,” he mutters with a pained smile, and she scoffs.

“You have that – that habit of touching it,” she replies, eyes fixed on the floor. “Your finger, where it used to… when you’re absent, sometimes.”

He sighs. “Do I do that?”

She shrugs, then nods. “I know we haven’t – oh for God’s sake, get off the floor, will you?” she snaps and he feels a small smile tug at his lips. He does as he’s told, gently placing the envelope on the mattress, then sitting down on the bed. He doesn’t really trust himself to stand.

“You can sit, Jyn,” he mutters, but she shakes her head, burying her hands in the pockets of her shorts.

“I’ll stand, thank you.” She looks strangely pale, licks her lips, the smile she tries to put on quickly fading from her features. “Like I was – we didn’t talk about it, I know, I… I meant to, but… well, easier said than done, turns out.” She raises her hands and shrugs helplessly, then goes on in an unsteady voice: “Look, I know we _got_ the chance, and I’m – I mean I could make a speech but it’d be rubbish and I guess it wouldn’t mean a thing either way and…”

His throat tightens a little. He hates for her to be so uncomfortable for his sake. “Jyn.”

“Oh, fuck it. It’s selfish, but there’ll be upsides for both of us and –“

“Jyn.”

“Don’t – don’t interrupt me. There _will_ be upsides, like, it’ll save us all these awkward questions and also we won’t have to make any kind of fuss because we already went through all that –“

“Jyn,” he repeats softly, smiling a little, but she ignores him and rattles on:

“And then there’s the tax benefit…”

He stares at her blankly for a moment, then starts laughing so hard he nearly chokes on air.

“That deserves an award,” he manages to gasp out after a while.

“For what?”

“You know, all those years I thought it couldn’t get much worse than mine but _this_... this is literally the least romantic proposal in the world.”

“Hey,” she protests faintly, but he just grins at her.

“You sound like you’re pitching a joint venture!”

“Yeah well, that’s kind of what I’m doing,” she replies slowly, grinning back. “I’m proposing a joint venture.”

He shakes his head at her, a grin tugging at his lips. “Well, if there’s a _tax benefit_...” He gets to his feet and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You have no talent for this. None at all.”

“Don’t be an ass, Cassian,” she mutters, fighting back laughter.

“What, I can demand a proper question at least, right?”

“This is _not_ fair.”

A grin pulls at his lips and he kisses her again. “It’s four words. You can manage four words, Jyn.”

“You’re _such_ an ass.”

“Not those four.”

“Oh, bloody hell, you know exactly what –“

“Yes. I know,” he mutters, still smiling, and pulls her a little closer. “Let me have this.”

Her head falls against his shoulder and he can feel her silent laughter. “I fucking _hate_ you.”

“Do you really?”

“Oh, I do, I –“ She throws him a dark glare. “This conversation was not supposed to go like this.”

He can feel another grin pull at his lips. “You don’t say.”

“This is entirely your fault.”

He gently lifts her chin and gives her a long, slow kiss. “I’m very sorry for derailing this conversation,” he mutters and somehow makes it through the sentence with a straight face.

She drops her head against his chest again, giggling helplessly. “ _Stop,”_ she whimpers, pushing at his shoulders. He presses another kiss to her bare shoulder, the skin still slightly too hot underneath his lips, and pulls her backwards towards the bed. Predictably, because he’s still laughing and he can’t see anything, it hits him in the hollow of his knees before he expects it and they both topple onto the mattress in a tangle of limps.

Jyn glares at him. “You are not helping.”

“I’m not trying to,” he replies, grinning up at her, and she shoves him at the shoulder before she buries her face at his neck and stills.

He runs a hand through her dark hair where it’s coming lose from the bun and slowly says: “Look. If… if we have this, then the rest doesn’t really matter, Jyn.”

She rolls to her side and links her fingers with his, green eyes fixed on his. “It _does_ , though,” she says quietly, all joking gone from her voice as well. “I thought it didn’t, I mean – God, I… I _loved_ you, and you were the only person I wanted to be with, but that was that for me. I married you because you asked and it wasn’t something I _didn’t_ want. It just wasn’t something I’d been thinking about, either.” She frowns at his expression, then adds: “It… I don’t mean… it _was_ something I wanted. Always wanted. I just thought that was something that happens to other people, you know? I was always kind of jealous, but I never really believed it would happen to me, and I don’t think I ever really thought of myself as your wife.” She sighs and runs a hand along his cheek, voice growing even softer. “I loved you, I did, I really did. I just don’t think I ever really wrapped my head around it until it was over.”

She looks at him, her face mere inches from his, and he wonders if he’s ever seen her like this when they were married, this vulnerable and open, and he can’t remember. She’s beautiful in the warm light, and she looks so calm, content; not scared. God, she’d always looked scared, he realises, there’d always been a tiny but constant spark of it in her green eyes.

“We got a lot wrong,” he whispers, and she smiles a little.

“We made it here, though.” Her fingers burrow in his hair, then she resumes: “And… I don’t want to make it sound like that’s not enough, because –“

“Jyn,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t.”

Her eyes flicker up at his, seeking reassurance, then she gives a small nod. “I just… it’s not even just when someone calls me your ex, it’s… I _hate_ referring to myself as your girlfriend. It’s not… that makes it sound like a high school thing, and we’ve been through so much and it just doesn’t… doesn’t cut it, right? And this, _us,_ it’s just almost perfect, and I want –“

“More,” he supplies gently, running a hand through her hair. “You don’t have to feel bad for that, Jyn,” he mutters before she can say anymore, then adds with a faint smile: “I’d be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t really hoping you’d get there someday.”

There’s a small, glowing smile pulling at her lips for a moment. “Just to – I am not doing this to keep you around. I know…,” her smile turns bitter for a split second, “I know that doesn’t work, and –“

“ _Jyn_ –“

“Let me finish,” she says firmly. “I know that doesn’t work, and I know… I trust you. And I know… I know you won’t leave me behind.”

“I won’t,” he whispers, and she smiles at him.

“I know. I just want you to know that’s not why.”

He pulls her closer to him, throat tight. “I won’t leave you, Jyn. I _couldn’t_. I couldn’t.”

She nods and kisses him lightly. “I know,” she whispers, smiling faintly. “I know that.”

“Good,” he mutters, his eyes tracing her familiar features, the exact same face he couldn’t tear his eyes away from all those years ago under the cold light of the neon lamp in the interrogation room. There are faint traces of time, in the corners of her eyes and the pull of her mouth, and yet – her face is perfectly familiar, and of course it is. She’s the only home he’s known in over two decades.

“Okay, listen,” she says softly, her eyes travelling over his face, making him think she’s mapping the signs of the time as well.

He feels a smile tug at his lips. “I am listening.”

She returns it for just a bit, then reaches for his hands and mutters: “Well, say what you want, at least I’m not doing this on a highway.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Yes, that was… I wasn’t thinking straight. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“Probably, but we also could have _died,_ ” she answers with a grin, scrapes her teeth over her lower lip. “Okay, you know exactly what’s going on and I’ll seriously not say this more than once, so are you _really_ listening?”

“I’m all ears. I promise.”

“This is horrible, how did you do it?” she grumbles and he smiles a little.

“Well, on impulse. Hence the highway.”

She throws him a dark look and leans over to kiss him, deep and tender, taking her time, until he caves in and pulls her on top of him with a faint sigh. She smiles against his lips and pulls away, pupils blown wide and that faint, glowing smile still tugging at her red lips.

“Marry me.”

Her voice is soft, quiet, and the moment she says the words it hits him how _afraid_ they were, the first time; how afraid he sounded, too, when he said them. There are traces of it left somewhere, woven into her familiar voice, but they are faint, almost faded.

He’s glad in a way that he got a warning because he doesn’t think he’d have taken the surprise half as well as she did back then. But still, he doesn’t feel prepared for the emotions washing over him like a warm wave.

“Come here.”

She grins at him, shaking her head. “ _Cassian_.”

Fighting the stupid smile on his face seems futile, at this point. “That wasn’t even a question.”

“Cassian, I swear to God –“

“I – _yes. Yes._ God, please, yes. Come _here_ ,” he mutters and pulls her closer, pressing kisses to her neck, still grinning so much it almost hurts. She tugs at his collar, pulling him up to her. The kiss is mostly teeth; they’re both laughing, and if his eyes sting a little then he’ll allow himself that.

She pulls away and curls up by his side, her nose brushing against his cheek. “I love you,” she whispers. “You know that, right?”

“Yes. I know that,” he answers softly and links his fingers with hers. “I know.”

“Good,” she mumbles, resting her head on his shoulder.

He presses a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, too.”

Jyn smiles up at him and pushes his hair out of his eyes. “You really do, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.” He grins and traces her collarbone with his fingertips. “We cancelling our plans for the day, then?”

“Mmh, ‘s tempting.” She sneaks a hand underneath his t-shirt, fingers trailing lightly over his stomach. “Maybe we’ll skip the museum?”

“Absolutely. Yes. Good.”


End file.
